Theater director and debut author Sash Bischoff joins Zibby to discuss SWEET FURY, a wildly imaginative, subversive, and breathlessly fun literary thriller about a beloved actress who is cast in a feminist adaptation of a Fitzgerald classic, only to find herself the victim in a deadly game of revenge. Sash explains how her acting and directing background helped shape the novel’s complex narrative—and how her tight-knit writing group helped her, too! She also dives into her novel’s themes of fame, ambition, and the darker sides of human nature.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Sasha. Thanks so much for coming on to talk about Sasha. Sweet Fury, your novel. So good, so twisty, and awesome, and escapist, and oh my gosh, really, really fun.

Congratulations. 

Sash: Thank you very much, and I have to tell you, this is my first podcast ever, so I am so thrilled. Starting at the top. 

Zibby: Yeah, it doesn't get better than this. Let me tell you. Well, I would argue this will be the most informal of all the podcasts, because I just really love having conversations.

And well, wow, your first podcast. Welcome to the field. Okay. Well, I often ask the hardest, most boring, annoying question first, which is to tell listeners about the book. So you can practice your elevator pitch on, on our guinea pigs here. 

Sash: Yes. So Sweet Period is a literary thriller. The main character, Lila Crane, is America's sweetheart.

She is a film actress adored the whole world over. And at the start of the book, she and her boyfriend, who's a famous filmmaker, film director have moved to the West Village in New York because they are about to begin filming their feminist adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, in which Lila is playing the leading role.

And so to begin preparing for the role, she starts working with esteemed therapist Jonah Gabriel to dig into the trauma of her past. But as Lila's perfect life unravels, the characters of Sweet Fury soon become entangled in a deadly game of revenge in which everyone on screen and off plays a part. 

Zibby: Yes.

And I did not see where this was going. I see this all the time. Like how many times do I have to remind people that I am like the most gullible reader? But! I find such delight when things, like, go where you, like, where you took us, which I will not reveal. But anyway, it was very, very clever. Anyway. Okay, so you have this whole F. Scott Fitzgerald thing going. You have this Princeton thing thing going. You have ambition and fame and you have therapy and all of that. Where did this whole jumble come from? Not jumble, because it all makes sense in your book. How did you pick all these threads? Like, where did the story come from? Take us back.

Sash: Yeah. Well, so I began, I grew up as an actor and I was acting professionally throughout my childhood and then made the transition into directing. And that was my full time career up until the pandemic. I went to school for writing and writing was always very important to me, but it was always secondary.

And so I was, you know, directing and I was working on Broadway and off regularly. And I was the associate director on Dear Evan Hansen from 2018 on. And so I was literally, putting an actor into the show for that night when we got the call that Broadway was shutting down. So, I mean, it was just, absolutely insane.

All of us in the industry went away. And so I pivoted and I just sort of said, I'm going to take this as a sign. I've always had this dream of being a writer. I'm going to try. And so obviously the acting and directing really influenced this book. It plays a huge part in this book. I began with It's two ideas.

I sort of, I think this happens for a lot of writers, but I get these sort of inspirations and flashes. I had the, I knew that I wanted to document the relationship between a film actress and her therapist through their session notes together. And then I knew the big final twist at the end. So I had the beginning at the end of the story, but I had no idea how to get from A to Z.

When I submitted the first draft to my wonderful writers group, one of the novelists in the group said, you know, The themes and the idea that this book is exploring are really reminiscent of Tender as the Night. What if these characters, what if the film adaptation they were making was of Tender? At that point, I had actually, I'd never read Tender before.

I'd only read The Great Gatsby. And so I read it and realized that her suggestion was genius. And so I give all credit to Blair Hurley, an amazing writer, for bringing Fitzgerald into this book. The more, I mean, I really went into a Fitzgerald rabbit hole where I literally read every single thing that he'd ever written and almost every book that was ever written about him.

And the deeper I dug, the more I realized that my book should be not just in conversation with Tender, but with his body of work as a whole. So cool. And you 

Zibby: are in a writing group I read at the end with Laura Hankin, who's been on this podcast like, I don't know, multiple times. My best friend. I adore her.

Aww. Actually, she was one of my very last podcast before the pandemic in person. 

Yeah. She was like one of the last and we did it, we made some joke when we did it because we did it so early. And we were like, well, you know, in case, you know, something like you never know what's going to happen with the world, but at least we got our podcast done.

And then literally the world like imploded and we were like, uh, did we make this happen? 

Sash: Do you miss doing it in person? 

Zibby: So, wait, go back to your child acting days. How, tell me more about that and what you did and how you got into it and how you feel about it. 

Sash: So I began acting when I was six and it was because I had this, Incurable shyness.

I was that child that like, when somebody would bend down to say hello, I would bury my face in my mother's thigh. I'm infused to look at them. And my mom was like, this has got to change. She was like, theater, theater is the answer. She had me audition for this regional production of a Christmas carol and I could sing.

And so I, And I got in and, you know, the production finished and my mom was like, okay, one and done, it's cured, moving on. And I said, no, I found my passion, my calling. And so I began acting. I became obsessed with it. Uh, I sort of never do anything halfway. And so I was doing, you know, regional theater and community theater and children's theater.

And then as I got into high school, I was living in San Diego. So I started driving up. to L. A. Almost every day after school to do film and TV as well. And I mean, I love acting. I still do. But there were a couple of things that sort of made me shift to directing. One is that as an actor, you are a very important piece, but a piece that in the puzzle.

And as a director, your job is to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. And I, I love that sort of creative challenge. I love working with the designers. I love working with all of the actors and digging into their character. I love sort of shaping the larger story. Directing is really just another form of storytelling, like writing.

And I think the other reason which, you know, the theme sort of comes into this book in a different, from a different angle, but for me being an actor, I found it really difficult to be. Constantly judged based on my looks, you know, there's an emphasis in both theater and TV and film for women, especially being young and beautiful and small and thin.

And that became a major source of anxiety for me, particularly as a girl growing up and figuring out her own body. And I wanted to find a career where that was not going to be how my worth was judged. 

Zibby: That makes total sense. By the way, when you just like say offhand, I used to drive up from San Diego after school to be, I mean, that is far just for people who don't know how that drive is.

Like I've been stuck in that drive and that is commitment in and of itself. 

Sash: It was, it was totally ludicrous. Like my mom would drive me so that I could prepare for my audition on the way up or, or whatever. And then the way home in the middle of the night, I had a fricking headlamp. Oh my gosh. And I would do my homework in the passenger seat and we would cackle because I would, you know, if my mom would say something to me or I would notice something, I would look up and my mom would say, don't look up because it was like another headlight flashing and blinding her.

Zibby: Oh my gosh. Well, that is commitment. I mean, wow. Real commitment. By the way, Dear Evan Hansen is probably my favorite show ever. I saw it multiple times. I've never cried as hard. in the theater, like not even appropriate crying levels, just like all out sobbing. 

Sash: Just ugly cry. Yeah. 

Zibby: Ugly crying. Yeah. Ugly crying in Dear Evan Hansen.

And then I took my kids back to see it. Anyway, so good. So congratulations on that. You must feel so much pride. 

Sash: Thank you. Yeah, it was an amazing show to work on. It's just, that was, you know, I'd worked in a number of Broadway shows before that, but that was the one where I really got to, I mean, it was an institution already.

It was sort of a machine when I entered the project. I wasn't there from the beginning. And so to be given that sort of seat where I was maintaining the show and sort of running both Broadway and the national tours was an incredible privilege. And I learned so, so much. 

Zibby: Are you working on any shows now?

Sash: Absolutely not. Are you kidding me? . This is like, this is a full-time job. I am finished my second book and I'm like editing it now, and so I'm, I'm just fully being a writer right now. . 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. You already finished your second book. I can tell. Like if I spent more time with you, I would just be routinely made to feel unproductive by whatever.

No, no, not intentionally. I can just like you are one of these like. Super producers, and that's awesome. So what is your second book? 

Sash: Well, I can't say too much about it, but basically it takes place on an island off the, in the Northeast coast of America. Takes place over the course of, I think it's going to be three generations starting about now and then going into the future, about 70 years.

And what you find out over the course is one of the, one of the twists, so I can't tell you what it is, but that it is a book. It's a modern feminist adaptation of a Greek tragedy, and it also deals with how, it looks at the island as a microcosm, as how America is dealing with the climate crisis. 

Zibby: Oh, interesting.

Sash: Yeah. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. You already finished it. 

Sash: Wow. Well, it's a mess, but yes, it exists. 

Zibby: I mean, that's okay. Once you have a mess, you can clean it up, right? It's getting, it's like getting it into the room to begin with. Oh my goodness. So you have this writing group you've been in forever with your college friends.

How does that work? And. How have you all achieved success as a result? Like, what is the secret of your writing group that we should all put into? Well, should we all get writing groups? I'm not even in a writing group. Like, tell me the whole thing. 

Sash: I mean, it depends based on the writer, but for me, it has been truly my lifeline.

I mean, after my husband, they are number two, the acknowledgements, basically. I, so I actually started the group myself. I, um, Was coming. I went to Princeton and they have an amazing creative writing department there and coming out of that. I knew that I was going to pursue a career as a theater director, but I also knew that I wanted to continue to write and that that was going to be hard to sort of pursue two careers in tandem.

And so I had this idea to create a group to be as a sort of accountability measure for myself to keep writing. And so I, I sort of reached out. I actually just found these emails a month or so ago to all of these Princeton people from my, from my class, whose emails were, or they're all about to expire, you know, are at princeton dot edu all about to go away. And so I was like, quick guys, like, does anybody want to do this with me? And a lot of people said, no, a bunch of people said yes. And then they, you know, did it for a year or two and then went on to different careers as you do. But two of the writers. Um, from my group, Blair Hurley, who's published two books and Daria Lavelle, whose debut Aftertaste is incredible and is coming out in May with Simon Schuster.

They said yes. So they've been there from the start. And then Laura Hankin joined a few years ago and then Love Will Hold Her, whose book is debut is coming out in December of next year. And so the five of us have. You know, for a while we were meeting every two weeks now it's whenever we can, but it's, it's really been my secret sauce because I'm, these are some of my deepest, closest friends.

You know, I have known them for almost 20 years now, which is insane. We all write in a slightly different genre. So there's no, there's truly no competition. I know that we all have Our backs and our best interests at heart, and I value their feedback and their thoughts so much. Um, and I, they really, I mean, they were in the weeds with me and creating Sweet Fury.

And it is, I mean, Blair Hurley was bringing in F. Scott Fitzgerald into the book. And, you know, Daria was sort of helping me with all of the twists in terms of the plot. They, each one of them gave me so much in, in creating Sweet Fury. So. I don't know what I would do without this group. 

Zibby: Well, I bet you helped them with theirs too, right?

I mean, it goes both ways. I mean, I think it's sometimes easier to see something that's going right or wrong in someone else's book than your own book, right? 

Sash: I totally agree. Oh, God. There is, I mean, this is, you know, is just like, Such a twisty, plot driven book. 

Zibby: Mm hmm. 

Sash: I was never a plotter, now I am, but I used to be a pantser.

And I really feel like I learned, Sweet Fury taught me how to plot a novel. You know, how to, how to write them. But there'd be so many times during the drafting where I'd be in the middle and I'd say, Yeah. Oh, my God, how do I, how do I fix this? I've written myself into a corner, you know, so I thank my group for helping me get out of those corners.

Zibby: Oh, my gosh, so exciting. This feels like it should be its own adaptation, which of course would kind of be like meta with the whole, you know, movie, the whole thing. Is there talk of that? 

Sash: And yeah, yeah, nothing I can say, but yes, it is very much, you know, being talked about and in the works and we're trying to make it happen.

That would be my dream. 

Zibby: Do you have stars who you kind of imagined in your head for any of these roles? 

Sash: Oh, good question. I mean, Taking sort of age away, I feel like, I don't know if this happens to you, but like the people that I grow up with, it's when they're sort of in their 20s and 30s, I think of them as always in their 20s and 30s, but I'm like Charlize Theron would be amazing, Lila, Jonah, I think I kind of wrote with Eddie Redmayne in my mind.

Zibby: Oh, okay. All right. 

Sash: You have people that popped up for you that you picked? 

Zibby: I was thinking more like the woman from, I can't even make a sentence, Dawn Draper, the ad show that, oh my god, what is the name of it? 

Sash: Oh, uh, Mad Men? 

Zibby: Okay, you know the, the wife in Mad Men? 

Sash: Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. 

Zibby: You know, like with the blonde hair, how she's like so perfect.

Sash: I'm not gonna get the name, but yes. 

Zibby: I can't remember her name either, but kind of, I mean, I kind of got those vibes too, you know, cause she was so, like everything was okay. I don't know. She had that. 

Sash: Yeah. 

Zibby: That's who I was. I was kind of picturing her. If I could remember her name. 

Sash: Nice. 

Zibby: Yeah. Maybe people listening are like yelling out at their cars like, no, no, it's this actress.

Sash: How can you both not know this person's name? 

Zibby: I know, exactly. What is wrong with you guys? Tell me about your. writing process and also like paint a picture of the environment. Like right now you're in this beautiful glass room with like palm fronds behind you, like looking like you're in like, I don't know, like the Beverly Hills Hotel brought to life or something.

What was it like writing this book and was it as glamorous as it may seem? 

Sash: 100 percent no. Not where I write. I mean, I'm in my, my husband and I, so I have I'm a big animal lover and I have, I rescue, I just have this bleeding heart to rescue animals in need. And so I have six animals at the moment. I know two dogs and four cats, all rescues.

And basically, you know, we live in this teeny tiny apartment in the West village and the animals all get along. They all cuddle with one another. The dogs and cats are best friends. It's very cute, but you know, I began this book at the start of the pandemic. So nothing, you know, about my writing life was luxurious or fun.

I was basically like in lockdown and not going outside except to walk the dogs with a mask on. But yeah, you know, I, I have my teeny tiny desk, you know, my teeny tiny chair in the corner and I just sit down and put my headphones on and listen to some music and I start, I start writing. And, but the funny thing about my, my writing situation is that the animals all congregate around me and sort of like a kumbaya session.

So like the two dogs are sitting I have a cat that loves to, like, step on the keys. I have a cat that sits in my lap. I have a cat that literally drapes himself over the back of my shoulder so that I have to hunt over to keep him there. And then I have a feral cat that, like, hides in the closet. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh.

Wow. See, I would never have brought that. I would never have thought. Who knew? You know, that there was, that You know, Noah's Ark, basically, in your 

Sash: They give me comfort, you know. Aww. I can do this when I have them all around me. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh, that's so amazing. So aside from your writing group people and all of their books, which of course you're reading, when you go for some fun reading when you're not F. Scott Fitzgerald deep diving, what are some of the things you like to read, or the genres you like best, or a book you've loved, or something like that? 

Sash: I'm a literary fiction girl all the way. I think, like, some of my I think her language is just exquisite and I dream of being as good a writer as she is.

I love, I mean Donna Tartt, uh, feels like the sort of the queen of what I hope to do at some point in my life. I love Michael Cunningham. I love Lisa Taddeo, I think. I feel like she and I have a lot of overlap in terms of what we're interested in and stylistically and I just am obsessed with every single one of her books.

Hanye and Akihara I love. The list goes on. 

Zibby: Love it. It's so, you know, I've read books by all those authors and as you kept saying one after another I'm like, oh, I never list them in my favorites, but I forget about them. Not necessarily forget, but like, oh yeah, them too. But it says a lot, like, that that's your 

Sash: Yeah, it must be very hard for you interviewing all of these authors to like say who your favorites are.

Zibby: Oh, no, I'm not saying I have favorites. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's true, too. But it's just like that says so much like that's such a shorthand for the kind of writing you do. Like it's such a good description. Those authors in particular. I don't know. I thought that. Like, you get such a sense, like, yes, of course, I have a total sense of their, their sort of general writing aesthetic.

Anyway, you know what I mean. Okay, so advice to aspiring authors, do you have any? 

Sash: Yeah. 

Zibby: The big, the big sigh. 

Sash: Yeah. I mean, so much, but I mean, I think first of all, you know, I think the adage of writing every day is really true. Some people can't do that. There are times in my life that I can't, like, for example, right now with publicity efforts, there's no way in hell that I am writing right now, but you know, as often as you can just put a pen to paper, keep Put your butt in the seat, read, but also read well, you know, read, choose, choose selectively the books that you want to read, because it does, I think, have a huge influence on the right, not, not to say that you're going to start sounding like your, you know, dream author, but it will have an impact on the direction that you go in the way that your mind works and what thoughts are floating through your mind.

And I think the biggest one for me is. I, you know, I had, I didn't really go down this road, but there were a number, you know, of times over the course of my life when I, because I was always writing, but even though it was secondary, where I, you know, was told no, that I wasn't good enough, you know, and sort of cut down.

And that is you know, part of the game, everybody experiences it. Even the Pulitzer prize winners experience it at some point, but that deep down inside you, if you know that this is what you really want to do, what keeps you up at night, you have to just believe in yourself and keep going. And eventually there's going to be a yes.

Zibby: I love that. Very inspiring. Excellent. Okay. Well, Sweet Fury. Amazing. Congratulations. I hope you survived your first podcast. 

Sash: That was crazy and fun. 

Zibby: Good luck on the rest and all the crazy publicity you are about to do. And yeah, thank you for the immersive experience and all the, the shocks, little shocks and twists and all that.

So thank you. 

Sash: Thank you. This was delightful. 

Thank you. 

Zibby: All right. Bye, Sash. Okay. Bye bye.